After a few years away from the game, former Chicago White Sox GM Rick Hahn is finally providing some brutally honest answers about what happened within the organization and the failed rebuild.
The peak behind the curtain came courtesy of MLB Network. Hahn appeared as a guest on MLB Now with Brian Kenny to talk about the initiation of the rebuild and what caused it to unravel so quickly.
As most Sox fans know, it was after a 78-84 record in 2016 that Rick Hahn delivered a press conference in which he said the team was "mired in mediocrity." That three-word moniker took Chicago media by storm. It became a mainstream phrase used to describe White Sox baseball...and it's ultimately why Hahn and the Sox finally blew it up.
Initiating the rebuild
According to Hahn, the organization's habits following the 2005 World Series carried on for over a decade. In 2016, the Sox were still using the same model that they had been using to win in all in '05.
All it had gotten them was mediocre baseball teams that stayed out of last place, but made the playoffs just one time (2008) in the decade immediately following the championship. Hence why Hahn said the Sox were "mired in mediocrity," a tragically accurate and poetic way to summarize the problems at hand.
"That really was the motivation," Hahn said on MLB Network. "When I first got there in '01 and joined Kenny [Williams] in his first year as GM, winning a World Series as quickly as possible and breaking an 88-year drought was of the utmost importance."
Hahn told Brian Kenny that he believed the White Sox had an even better team on paper in 2006 than in 2005. The run from 2005-2008 was a fleeting window of contention for Chicago. It fueled the front office to try and chase the magic of 2005 over and over again.
"We had a little but of a run where we tried to keep feeding the beast. We may have tried too long to keep feeding the beast, doing short-term gap fits....ultimately, that's not satisfying," said Hahn. "When we were stuck there in the middle and not winning consistently enough, we had conversations with Jerry [Reinsdorf] that were very honest that were like 'we need to take a step back.'"
Why did the rebuild fail?
For a while, it looked like Hahn and the Sox were due to replicate the success that the Cubs had brought to the Near North Side. By assembling an army of prospects and offloading stars like Chris Sale and Jose Quintana, the White Sox had controlled assets that were supposed to develop as a unit.
In 2020 and 2021, the White Sox made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history. A 93-69 record in '21 was really encouraging for a team that overcame a fair number of injuries.
"We certainly felt in '22 like we were going to be able to sustain this thing," Hahn said to MLB Network. "We had some bad luck in injuries, but everyone does. The '21 team, we had a lot of injuries and we wound up being able to plug those holes from internal options. We had nine guys taken in the 1st round between 2013-2021 contribute to that '21 team. It was a tremendous organizational win. So we go into '22 feeling good about ourselves."
In the blink of an eye, the White Sox finished 81-81 in 2022 and had turned into a 100-loss team by 2023.
"Perhaps we overestimated a little bit in terms of our players growth," Hahn admitted. "We obviously made some bets on some young players thinking they were going to grow into the level we projected them to be...that boxed us a little bit from a payroll standpoint. The injuries hurt and our culture wandered a little bit. The vibe changed in that clubhouse and we sort of lost a little bit of that competitiveness."
To anyone paying close attention, it was obvious that the White Sox had a bigger issue than injuries as the rebuild was unraveling. The lack of energy from the players on the field was tough to watch. Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, and Andrew Vaughn may not have developed into the stars Hahn was hoping they'd be, but the life got sucked out of that club from within. The Sox had a culture problem.
That probably has something to do with the manager being a 77-year-old that was falling asleep in the dugout.
In Hahn's defense, the Tony La Russa hire was not something he endorsed or had any control over.
Listening to Hahn talk about the failures of the last regime only makes me more nervous about what trajectory the Sox are on currently. Chicago is playing more enjoyable baseball in 2025. The young pitching is exciting and the team seems to have some legitimate prospects in the pipeline.
But if you don't have the right culture and the right leaders, a window of opportunity can evaporate in the blink of an eye. Braden Montgomery is an example of a prospect who has a strong, competitive mentality, but the leaders with the White Sox have yet to be tested when the expectations are raised. And of course, ownership remains the same after all these years.